Research the United States Postal Service (https://www.usps.com/about/welcome.htm). After reviewing of all the documents you can find on the web and in libraries, write a response to the following questions:
Question 1. What is the most important problem facing the United States Postal Service?
Question 2. What recommendation(s) would you make to the United States Postal Service, and in what order of priorities?
Question 3. How do you balance between your commitment to shareholders/owners and your commitment to the community?
You must integrate the course material and conduct additional research for answering questions 2 and 3. In other words, by conducting additional research, you will be supporting your recommendation and your position in question 3. Please avoid using sites such as Wikipedia.org, dictionary.com, etc. Please refer to "Expectations" regarding APA. No definitions - simply apply the concepts when completing the assignment.
Evaluate each of the following approaches that a business firm could use to gather information about competition. For each approach, mark its appropriateness using the following scale:
1. Definitely not appropriate,
2. Probably not appropriate,
3. Undecided,
4. Probably appropriate, and
5. Definitely appropriate
The business firm should try to get useful information about competitors by:
- Careful study of trade journals
- Wiretapping the telephones of competitors
- Posing as a potential customer to competitors
- Getting loyal customers to put out a phone "request for proposal" soliciting competitors' bids
- Buying competitors' products and taking them apart
- Hiring management consultants who have worked for competitors
- Rewarding competitors' employees for useful "tips"
- Questioning competitors' customers and/or suppliers
- Buying and analyzing competitors' garbage
- Advertising and interviewing for nonexistent jobs
- Taking public tours of competitors' facilities
- Releasing false information about the company in order to confuse competitors.
- Questioning competitors' technical people at trade shows and conferences
- Hiring key people away from competitors
- Analyzing competitors' labor union contracts
- Having employees date persons who work for competitors
- Studying aerial photographs of competitors' facilities